UN Says Syria May Have Used Chemical Weapons

A United Nations report has accused Syria of using chemical weapons eight times in April - and highlights mass atrocities by Islamic State militants.

The report by the independent Commission of Inquiry said it believed chlorine, dispatched in barrel bombs, was the agent used on multiple occasions.

It came amid reports that Syrian rebels had seized control of the Syrian crossing with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there had been heavy fighting between the rebels, including the al Qaeda affiliated al Nusra Front, and army forces.

An Israeli army officer stationed in the Golan Heights has been injured after errant fire, sources said.   

The UN's 45-page report accused the Syrian regime of dropping barrel bombs on residential areas and highlighted atrocities meted out by Islamic State members. 

Islamic State fighters in northern Raqqa province

"Reasonable grounds exist to believe that chemical agents, likely chlorine, were used on (northern Syrian villages) Kafr Zeita, al Tamana and Tal Minnis in eight incidents within a 10-day period in April," it said.

"Witnesses saw helicopters drop barrel bombs and smelled a scent akin to domestic chlorine immediately following impact," it pointed out.

Victims suffered "symptoms compatible with exposure to chemical agents, namely vomiting, eye and skin irritation, choking and other respiratory problems".

President Assad was sworn in for another seven years in July

It marks the first time the UN has assigned blame for the use of the chemical agent. 

Bashar al Assad and the opposition have accused each other of using chemical agents, including chlorine, in the bloody uprising, that began in March 2011.

The report on the human rights situation also found that public executions, as well as amputations, lashing and mock crucifixions regularly take place on Fridays in parts of Syria controlled by Islamic State (IS).

In the document, the panel described beheadings of boys as young as 15, men flogged for things like smoking or accompanying an "improperly dressed" female relative, and women publicly lashed for not following the group's strict dress code.

IS, which declared a "caliphate" in an area stretching across northern Iraq and eastern Syria, is also recruiting and training children as young as 10, with teens being used in active combat and suicide-bombing missions, the report said.

"This is a continuation - and a geographic expansion - of the widespread and systematic attack on the civilian population," according to the report of the four-member commission that is chaired by Brazilian diplomat and scholar Paulo Sergio Pinheiro.

The commission was created three years ago by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate abuses committed in the war, which is estimated to have killed nearly 200,000 people.

It will present to the council next month its latest report covering a litany of war crimes and crimes against humanity it says were carried out by the Syrian government, IS and opposition groups.

Syria has said it is ready to cooperate with the international community in the fight against the militants who have taken over areas straddling both Iraq and Syria.

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